5th Avenue Penthouse

This residential project is driven by collaborative design between two young design professionals. By teaming up, Justin Huxol and Dale Eramo bring together their collective experience in architecture, visual merchandising, interior design and furniture design. The owners of this 3-bedroom penthouse wanted a pied-a-terre with an open living space for entertaining while offering contrasting tonal moods throughout the apartment.

The living room is anchored by a massive 14' custom casework, by HUXHUX Design, designed to thoroughly engage the senses. This centerpiece addresses bringing the human hand back into the digital process of making by focusing on the sensual potentials of casework. This massive built in takes a clean modern form that necessary engages the senses. The cupboards are made of Corian. While their looks belie materiality, when one touches the doors--specifically designed with push latches--they feel the cold, smooth, stone-like surface. The solid brass panels have been CNC routed with patterns, but the focus for these elements is the dynamic relationship between moire light and shadow created by these sliding panels which serve to conceal the television. The wood also is a visual overload. By working with heavily figured tiger maple the simple forms of the thick clean shelves are complicated by the material's almost iridescent reaction to light. The unit changes color as one moves around the room and shifts perspective.

The master suite is an exploration of tonality in gray. The room evokes a darker, sultry mood. Custom reclaimed teak casework, by HUXHUX design, echoes the chevron patterns from the living room built-in, carrying this geometric motif throughout the apartment. The heaviness of the dark tones is counterbalanced by the large acrylic bedside vitrines which house silver Hindu deities from the client's art collection.

The guest bedroom is an exploration of tonality in neutrals. A geometric hand-painted wall mural sets the backdrop for a soft sensual layering of materials that were selected for their various textures. An heirloom dome chair anchors the darkest tones while midcentury cutout artwork offer tonal play in monochromatic shades of white.

By mixing carefully curated antiques with unique custom furniture, Huxol & Eramo wed the old with the new, the known with the unexpected. The project's focus on tonal explorations makes sensual subtlety their operative language for interior design.